Designing Quality Products

Nathan Manousos

Lesson 34

It's time to stop churning out software and start creating quality products. Ideas are a dime a dozen. Design and Development tools are advanced. Let's focus on what really matters.

Great products begin and end with great design. Design should influence all product decisions. Even fundamental business questions like what to build, or how to sell it, should be treated as design decisions.

Apple's success has given the world permission to take design seriously. That doesn't mean treating design as important. It's much more than that. Design is everything.

See to it that great results come from your designs. Most of what you produce as a designer gets thrown away. Functioning software is all that matters when you are done. Don't expect good results by "Throwing it over the fence."

Listen to your tummy. Insist on quality and be honest with yourself when what you've produced doesn't meet your standards. It's easy to justify shipping something sub-par, especially when you've spent a lot of time on it. Say no.

Listen to the sincerity in his voice, this is Apple's secret. Don't ship junk. Decide to make things you'd be proud to recommend to your family and friends. Don't treat it as a business decision, treat it as a life decision.

Nathan Manousos

I'm an independent developer, designer and juggler who is nuts about great products. I'm the founder of Flinto, creator of ImageSnap and an instructor at General Assembly. Previously I was the designer of Echofon and a UI developer at Blurb.